Purple Heart Arrives 42 Years Late Ritter Helps L.v. Man Get Medal

At the beginning, Ray Ward's World War II was not that much different from that of other soldiers. Like many patriotic men in December 1941, the Bethlehem native left high school for military service.

He found his niche in the Army Air Corps' gunnery school. Honing his skills, Ward soon got a post as top turret gunner and radio operator on a B-24 Liberator bomber. Like thousands of others, he soon found himself high over the skies of the Third Reich.

What makes Ray Ward's war different was what happened to him over Germany. For there, on June 20, 1944, he had a brush with death. This is why yesterday - 42 years to the day later - he was awarded a long-delayed Purple Heart for wounds received in service to his country.

The medal was given at 9 a.m. in the Bethlehem office of 15th District U.S. Rep. Don Ritter. The city of Allentown also honored Ward at the same ceremony with a citation from Mayor Joseph Daddona.

It was the first raid on Pollitz, Germany (today in East Germany) that shook Ray Ward and his fellow crew members of the bomber Mary Mac, named for the pilot's girlfriend. The ship and crew had already seen plenty of action. But it was this long bombing run into the heart of Germany that got to them.

Their target was a ball bearing works. But the German flak gunners had other ideas. They honed in on the Mary Mac and poured a torrent of metal skyward. It was not long before the big B-24 was feeling it. Crippled, it took all the crew's skills to get her back home.

They almost made it.

"As soon as we got within sight of the English coast, the pilot gave the order to bail out," recalls Ray Ward. As they jumped, the Mary Mac, joining the wrecksof Roman galleys and the Spanish Armada, fell into the English Channel.

Although all of them emerged unharmed, the men of the Mary Mac never forgot the flak of Pollitz. Even after their new plane, Mary Mac II, dropped bombs on Normandy's beaches on D-Day, they kept Pollitz in the back of their minds. So it was with a deep feeling of apprehension that the crew greeted the news that those ball bearing works needed a second dose. The men would be heading back.

"Nobody talked about it, but we were all thinking about it," remembers Ward. Seeking solace, he went to the chaplain. The priest tried to be comforting, but words were not enough for Ward. He admits today that nothing anyone could say would have eased his anxiety. When told not to fear, the young turret gunner said half-jokingly to the chaplain, "That's easy for you to say. You're staying here."

On June 20, 1944, they took off from England. Before long, they were over Pollitz and in the thick of the fire. Mary Mac II was a target from the start. The anti-aircraft guns and the German planes they were up against poured it on. Fighting back the best they could, the crew of the Mary Mac II lost two of its members.

Ward still winces slightly as he recalls it. And over and over, in between prayers, he kept thinking, "What the hell am I doing here?"

The pilot knew they could not last much longer. Ward, his shoulder dislocated from the pounding the plane was taking, knew it too. Rather than try to make England, the pilot opted to take the wounded B-24 north to neutral Sweden.

Once they got over land, two Swedish fighter planes pulled up alongside the Mary Mac II. They wiggled their wings to let the pilot know it was all right for him to attempt a landing. As Ward remembers it, the plane didn't quite make it.

"As we all hit the silk," says Ward, recalling the bailout, "the plane just went down."

Ward and his fellow crew members found the Swedes good hosts. After a stint in an internment camp, they were returned to England. How this all worked out Ward refuses to say, citing a promise of silence that was made at the time.

Shortly thereafter, the war ended and the crew of the late Mary Mac II returned home.

At the close of the conflict, Ward decided to see if he was eligible for a Purple Heart. But he was told a fire at a military archives had wiped out all service records. Confronted with this problem and the mountains of red tape necessary to get it corrected, Ward dropped his plans for a Purple Heart.

But he kept the idea in the back of his mind. It was about two years ago that Ward met Rep. Ritter at a social function. In the course of the conversation, he told Ritter that despite being wounded in combat, he never got a Purple Heart. Ritter promised to see what could be done.

After much grinding of bureaucratic wheels, Ward finally got the good news.